The Grenada gazette. (Grenada, Miss.) 1885-18??, 1887-04-16

'Ou"y uiakeS q most skillfu1.
attentive and plant domestic. For hi.
rectitude. his faithfulness, his trust.
worthiness. and other Western charac-
teristlcs unfortunately not much can be
said. but a good deal about the absence
OF those qualities. Yet, as in the kim.
dom OF the blind the one-eyed man Is
monarch, so in Turkey the Greek is the
KING OF servants. The others-Turks.
Armenians. Arnauts. Bulgarians, Abys-
sinians. Arabs. etc.,-are insufferably
stupid, slow and unwilling to work.
Europeans in Turkey nearly always
employ Greeks. In the large cities Of
Turkey, especially in Constant,pople
and smyrna, it is largely by the de-
vious influence they exert through
their compatriots in the service Of
Turkish dignitaries that the Greeks
maintain the pre-eminent position they
there enjoy. And even the most fanat-
ical old-school Turk, who may curse
with bated breath the very existence of
the giaour, can not get along without
his adroit, smooth-spoken Greek secre-
tary, dragoman, pipe-bearer, or b:dy
servant. These Levantine or Byzant-
inc Greeks must not be COMPOUNDED
with their cousins of Greece proper,
with whom they have hardly any thing
IN common save consanguinity and
language. While the real Greeks have,
during the past sixty years. repeatedly
proved to the world thst valor and
love of independence are not dead
within them, those Hellenes of Turkey
are above all noted for a total lack Of
independence and bravery. They are
utterly unconscious of their own deg
radiation. and will readily kiss the hand
that smites them. With all that, it is
curious to note that the old names of
Greek history revive in those degen-
crate scions of mongrel blood. Many
a newer of wood in Constantinople
answers to the name of Aristides: many
a great hanger-on to Il Moslem Pasha
is a Leonidas in name. In fact, it is
pretty safe for any one to call a Greek
servant either Aristides or Leonidas if
he does not know his name. Ten
chances to n that it is one of the two.
And it is an almost invariable rule for
the lower class Greeks in the Levant to
give their m such honored names as
Miltiades, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle,
Pericles, Agesilaos, Themistocles, and
the like in baptism. l remember how
odd it sounded to me when, in my
lodging at Constantinople, l had to
bawl for Socrates over the banisters,
said Socrates being a v%illainous-
old man-of-all-work, with a
in his eye and a hump on his
back.
OF course, all Greek servants cheat,
lie and steal, for if there ever had been
one who didn't do these things his
name would have been preserved. No
in the Orient expects any thing
else of a Greek servant, and the point
IS not to give him more chances to III
lulge these little foibles than one has
10 or can afford. As wages of servants
all over the East arc excessively low,
and their earnings consist for the most
part in perquisites of all kinds, legiti-
mate and otherwise, every master of a
household expects to be defrauded and
hoodwinked by his servants. The
question turns only on the amount, and
hose servants places where a good
leal Of money may be pocketed on the
lily with little fear of detection are
eagerly sought after. Brides
'orm, of course, a very large percentage
these dishonest gains; but bribery is
considered perfectly reputable for both
to the transaction, and brides do
not, therefore, figure in this enumera-
ion of the oriental servants shortcom-
ngs. A certain amount of actual pur-
and e~mbczzling is, however,
Ilso deemed permissible by the Turkish
if the servant has not been
derelict. Thus, in making
he may always deduct an EN-
orced commission when rendering his
recount, and always does. The same
When he receives money from his en-
While all this is true of the Greek
md in a less degree of the Armenian
in Turkish pay, it is not true
# the Turk when wearing the yoke of
domestic servitude. But real Turks
deign to accept such chains,
lot even the poorest. They prefer to
cave the shame and the emoluments Of
erfdom alike to men and women of
'ther races than theirs. The conditions
4 domestic service In the East Indies
ave become pretty well known